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Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

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Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#201

Post by tudorconstantin »

joefourier wrote: post #31

Notice how almost all news of Bitcoin now are about its price. Bitcoin used to be exciting in both technical and economical aspects, but has now become just a store of value entirely driven by speculation. Other technically superior cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases, boasting much faster and cheaper transactions and real anonymity in the case of Monero. Bitcoin takes more tha…

Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact, because I don't know of any of them to be backed by anything else than trust.

Of course, the US dollar has the whole US economy and the biggest army in the world as its plus, but it also has its minuses: the US treasury can and does print as many as it wants, in the detriment of ALL USD holders.

Bitcoin's pluses when comparing it to other crypto currencies are:

- the first to market advantage

- almost 9 years of virtually 0 hacks of the protocol or concept

- no sudden moves

- the whole ecosystem that formed around it

- etc.

Let's not forget - ETH is less than 3 years old, Ripple is centralized, Litecoin, zCash, Monero and most of the others are bitcoin forks.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#202

Post by Jommi »

simias wrote: post #152
Jommi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first sentence mostly fits Bitcoin, but misses the point on most of the other cryptocurrencies.

Please do enlighten me then, what do other cryptocurrencies offer? I also think my first sentence applies to bitcoin and ethereum which together have a bigger market cap than all the other cryptocurrencies added together.

>Please do enlighten me then, what do other cryptocurrencies offer?

Other cryptocurrencies can provide:

- Private, near untracable ways of doing payments

- Efficient, near 0-cost ways of transfering funds.

>I also think my first sentence applies to bitcoin and ethereum which together have a bigger market cap than all the other cryptocurrencies added together. "Cryptocurrencies have a niche use, mainly to buy things on the black market but also for small peer-to-peer international payments when other options are not practical. For this reason, I don't expect that cryptocurrencies will completely disappear anytime soon."

If you want to talk about Bitcoin and Ethereum, say Bitcoin and Ethereum, and not "Cryptocurrencies".

Bitcoin is not anonymous. Bitcoin has high transaction cost. Ethereum is not anonymous. Ethereum has a comparable high transaction cost.

These facts mean buying on the black market, and small international payments are not ideal to do with these cryptocurrencies.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#203

Post by dcdanko »

tfha wrote: post #187
randallsquared wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has no stake in any of these, it seems to me that Ethereum has a big PR problem no matter how technically superior it is: it's inextricably tied to the story about the DAO, where those who played the game by the rules had their Ethereum redistributed by the developers because said developers didn't like the outcome. (I know that this isn't a neutral phrasing, but it's the perception I'm talking about..…

People who believe that ethereum is technically superior have not studied cryptocurrencies in depth. Ethereum made a lot of reckless design decisions, trading long term stability and security for advantages that only exist over bitcoin in the short term. Their short block time is a sloppy choice. Their focus on gpu mining is a boneheaded mistake. Their scripting system is embarrassing. Proof of stake is nonviable. Mu…

Strongly agree. POS is just a dream (until someone proves me wrong :P)

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#204

Post by LyndsySimon »

zanny wrote: post #171
tom_mellior wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift cards bought with Bitcoin). It's tough enough to find sites that accept Bitcoin, but I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I admit that I haven't searched, but I would have expected a correlation with…

None of the cryptos that exist today can even function as an effective "buying stuff" currency because they are all deflationary, not just in exchange rates and short term speculation but in how they all mine at fixed / declining rates to finite limits. If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of th…

First of all, not all existing cryptos are deflationary. Off the top of my head, Dogecoin is the best-known example of an inflationary crypto. There are about 110,000,000,000 Doge in circulation at the moment, and that number will increase at a rate of a little over 5,000,000,000 per year ad infinitum.

Secondly, the inherent deflationary nature of Bitcoin has not yet come to pass. Coins are currently being mined at a rate of 4% per year, halving about every 18 months. Once the inflation rate for Bitcoin goes negative, only then will we be dealing with a truly deflationary currency. It only seems deflationary now because the demand for Bitcoin is drastically outpacing the rate at which it's being inflated.

Finally, the inability of the state to inflate Bitcoin at will is the point. If you want to keep your capital in a state-controlled inflationary currency no one is going to stop you. What I and others in the Bitcoin community believe will happen is that "bad money will drive out good". People will spend their dollars and hoard their Bitcoin, as they will understand that dollars will be worth less and Bitcoin more in the future. The only way to stop that from happening will be a drastic reduction in the number of dollars in circulation... which again, is kind of the whole point for many of us.

> The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of the price of gold - its predictably scarce. Thats its value.

That's one use case, yes. It's not the only use case.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#205

Post by Geee »

zanny wrote: post #171
tom_mellior wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift cards bought with Bitcoin). It's tough enough to find sites that accept Bitcoin, but I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I admit that I haven't searched, but I would have expected a correlation with…

None of the cryptos that exist today can even function as an effective "buying stuff" currency because they are all deflationary, not just in exchange rates and short term speculation but in how they all mine at fixed / declining rates to finite limits. If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of th…

This is a stupid argument. Why don't people just put all their money in stocks and never buy anything?

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#206

Post by pinchharmonic »

Do these people that hold bitcoin or say that they've "made amazing returns" actual cash out at any point? Or are they holding a few bitcoins like everyone else? Isn't that how a bubble forms?

If I got into it, I would get a return I thought was nice (100-200%) and then cash out.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#207

Post by LyndsySimon »

wallace_f wrote: post #161
dcdanko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shopworn but good tech doesn't always win. Bitcoin has a big(ish) network of users and a proven codebase. The decentralized nature of blockchains means that they're hard for individual corporations to control and profit from. That hampers adoption of new closed cryptocurrencies (not Monero or Ethereum though) but can serve as a powerful public utility.

This is an interesting line of thought: bitcoin has no intrinsic value--its price represents a supply and demand equillibrium for a (1) money, that is (2) pseudonymous, and (3) not a government currency. If other CCs can offer 2, 3 equally well, the price premium must be due to something different about 1--how well it performs the functions of money. Is it a better Store of Value? How much better of a Medium of Excha…

> This is an interesting line of thought: bitcoin has no intrinsic value--its price represents a supply and demand equillibrium for a (1) money, that is (2) pseudonymous, and (3) not a government currency.

I agree with this completely, but think there are a few other factors that will matter in the future but have not yet become widely used. The relative importance of all of these factors has changed over time and will continue to change in the future.

> As far as I can tell from my napkin analysis, I would guess that bitcoin appears to be in a pretty speculative bubble.

Again, I agree. Every time the price of Bitcoin has gone up a great deal in a short time, it's been a bubble caused by speculation or by a new wave of people joining for the first time. Every time that's happened, the bubble has burst. Every time the bubble has burst, it's bottomed out at a level significantly higher than the previous baseline, and every time it's bottomed out it the price has stabilized and ultimately recovered.

If you want to day trade, now is probably a great time to get in - assuming we're still on the way up. If you're wanting to hold long-term, then the safest time to buy will be as soon as the price stabilizes after the next pop. As for me... I buy on a regular basis without regard to the price. I'm something of a "true believer" though, and don't expect to ever sell my entire holdings again.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#208

Post by Geee »

dcdanko wrote: post #203
tfha wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who believe that ethereum is technically superior have not studied cryptocurrencies in depth. Ethereum made a lot of reckless design decisions, trading long term stability and security for advantages that only exist over bitcoin in the short term. Their short block time is a sloppy choice. Their focus on gpu mining is a boneheaded mistake. Their scripting system is embarrassing. Proof of stake is nonviable. Mu…

Strongly agree. POS is just a dream (until someone proves me wrong :P)

You have been proved wrong :) https://www.cardanohub.org/en/ouroboros/

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#209

Post by jboggan »

Andrenid wrote: post #2

I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but I'm still completely lost as to whether Bitcoin is basically a pyramid scheme set to crash massively, or something huge that will continue climbing. I probably should've taken the time to mine some back when my friends were doing it and tried convincing me too. Ah well. (Queue heated comments from both sides. Discussing bitcoin is like bringing up religion AND politics at the…

I would say that the current bull run in Bitcoin is mainly due to folks with early stakes in ICOs taking their money and running from Ethereum.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#210

Post by alangou »

eterm wrote: post #40
dandare wrote: post #3

I keep seeing my non-it friends boasting on FB how much they profited with Bitcoin this week. I am afraid this bubble will get way much bigger before it bursts.

I'm afraid that like the housing bubble, it'll get "too big to burst" and require intervention to keep those who have previously invested afloat while keeping down those outside the bubble.

I'd certainly be very impressed if cryptocurrencies reached the point where they could affect the economy that much in the near future. The current market capitalization of all cryptos comes out to under $200 billion [1], while the US housing market was nearly $30 trillion as of last December [2]. So it would have to grow 150x somehow.

[1] https://coinmarketcap.com/ [2] http://zillow.mediaroom.com/2016-12-30-U-S-Housing-Worth-Rec...

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